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Snowed in.

Last weekend, Winter Storm Franck dislodged an avalanche of verbiage onto the sleepy hamlet of First Thoughts. Over the past few days, residents have been laboring to uncover the contours of an argument that engages the moral tradition many of them hold dear. Better fire up the snowblower.

Matthew Franck and I do not agree about several features of the Obama administration's latest revision of its contraception mandate. Where he sees government intrusion and moral thuggery, I see an imperfect but serious attempt to grapple with the concerns of religiously affiliated employers. He rejects my argument that Catholic employers may, according to their own moral tradition, licitly abide by HHS's proposals. But now Franck goes further, claiming that I have unwittingly undermined my own position by admitting that the premiums paid by a Catholic employer might be used to cover contraception for an employee of another company. You see, two weeks ago I wrote that the "accommodation" would not "oblige a Catholic institution to fund contraception coverage." And then the following week I tried to help Franck understand how insurance works -- by explaining that insurers pool premium payments from all their customers and distribute the funds as they see fit. Aha!

When Gallicho writes that such an employer may be one of the funding sources, he gives the game away. He is one inch away from understanding the point he himself is trying to make, about the fungibility of money. All the employers paying premiums to one insurance provider are paying, in common, for the contraception coverage of all their employees. Another way to say it that is equally true is that each and every one of them is paying for contraception coverage, in a common risk pool (if that term applies accurately to a choice that has very little to do with risk), from which all their employees contraception is funded. All are paying; each is paying; if EWTN is one of the all, it is one of the each. It will be paying for contraception.

Is it true? Have the hurricane-force gusts of Winter Storm Franck blown my argument apart? Not really, because there's paying for something and then there's paying for something. When you buy a banana, you indicate your interest by presenting it at your grocer's cash register. The clerk tells you how much it costs, you hand him the money, and off you go with your proof-of-God fruit. But what will that grocer do with your money? Will he use it to pay his divorce lawyer? To bust the cashiers union? To bring in the store's next shipment of condoms? If so, can it be said that you have funded those activities? Remotely, yes. But did you ask for those things when you brought that banana to the cashier? Of course not. Would those events have transpired if you had gotten the banana from another vendor? In all likelihood, yes. So even though your money may have facilitated the grocer's immoral actions, you're not culpable. You didn't patronize that grocer because you wanted to support those actions. You couldn't say for sure whether he'd use your money to further his immoral aims. You patronized him because you were hungry. No harm, no foul.

So it goes with the contraception mandate. (Refresher: According to the latest proposal, religiously affiliated employers like hospitals, colleges, and charities, will be able to contract for employee insurance policies that exclude contraception coverage. Their employees will, in turn, receive an offer of free contraception coverage from the insurer.) Franck asserts that these "accommodated" religious employers will still be contracting for contraception coverage. Not so. He says the accommodation amounts to a contract by default, because insurers will offer free contraception coverage only to people they already cover (otherwise they would have no financial incentive to do so). But that's a dodge. At this point, who could doubt the intent of the religiously objecting employer? The HHS proposal will not require religious employers to endorse the use of contraception, nor will it bar such employers from informing their workers about Catholic teaching on the subject. (Indeed, that is precisely what the bishop of Madison did when he chose to comply with Wisconsin law and include contraceptive coverage in his employee health plan.)

Intent still matters in Catholic moral reasoning. You aren't engaging in Catholic moral analysis until you answer three questions: What was the intent of the moral agent? What was the effect of his action? Could those effects have been brought about without his action? Franck is all over the second question. But the first and third barely feature in his analysis. Nevertheless, he manages to bump up against the third in his most recent post, if only by accident.

In pointing out that pooled resources complicate the culpability of those who fund them, I noted that paying taxes is not immoral even though tax dollars fund illicit acts (including contraception, thanks to Title X). And Franck agrees with me. But...

does he really mean to assimilate the business of contracting for insurance coverage--a free market transaction between employers and insurance providers--to the situation that obtains between taxpayers and the state? I know that many conservatives have observed that ObamaCare converts health insurance providers into public utilities. Gallicho would go further, seeing them as public agencies, or the moral equivalent thereof.

The business of purchasing health insurance is a lot of things, but a free-market transaction is not one of them. The health-insurance market is tightly controlled by state and federal regulations. They determine what we can and cannot buy. They control whom insurers can -- and, in some cases, must -- sell to. They even tell us where we can buy it -- you can purchase a car across state lines, but not health insurance. The Affordable Care Act increases regulation in several important areas (sayonara, preexisting conditions). It also turns health-care coverage into a requirement of citizenship -- the implications of which seem lost on Franck. He writes:

When we pay taxes, we do so as a civic duty, and we do so under coercion. If we are liable for taxes, we have a duty to pay them as members of the community. Because the state must be able to compel payment, we are subject to coercion if we dont pay. But we share responsibility for the good or evil our government does, and we owe one another our best persuasive efforts, and the action of our votes, to see to it that the government does good and avoids evil.

Our duly elected representatives crafted and passed a bill, signed into law by our democratically elected president, that compels -- you might even say it coerces -- Americans to have health insurance. Franck laments that the government did not decide to provide contraceptives directly (indeed, that would have saved all of us a lot of headaches). In that case, "the state -- meaning all of us whom it represents, collectively -- would be right back 'on the hook,' and we could struggle democratically over whether this coverage is a good to be funded by taxpayers or an evil to remain unfunded by the federal budget." That, Franck opines, "would be a fight in the open, at least. But the HHS mandate is something else again, entailing layer on layer of coercion, deception, and moral thuggery."

Nonsense. The Affordable Care Act was produced by a democratically elected government. The Department of Health and Human Services has issued three sets of proposals responding to the concerns of certain religious employers. It has asked for public comment. If the voters decide that the law does evil, they can throw those responsible out of office. In the meantime, if you can obtain health insurance and you choose not to, you'll have to pay a fine. The Supreme Court declared the individual mandate constitutional as an extension of congressional taxing power.

Back to Franck:

The reason we are not on the hook individually for any evils on which our tax dollars are spent is...that the state acts as the representative of all of us citizens in common (this is true in every state, and literally so in a democracy), and the evils (if any) that it commits are our collective (not individual) responsibility whether we pay any taxes or not.

He's right. That's how you run the argument. Now let's apply it to the contraception mandate. If an accommodated religious employer decides not to provide health coverage to its employees, what's likely to happen? Employees will go to the state exchanges and purchase health plans that include contraception coverage -- worse, they might even contract for a plan that covers abortion (the Affordable Care Act explicitly allows states to bar exchanges from offering plans that cover abortions). That fact diminishes the culpability of accommodated religious employers who choose to provide health coverage to their workers. Add to that the fact that they contract for coverage that excludes contraception, along with the fact that providing health care outweighs the risk that employees might or might not use the separate contraception coverage, and what you have is licit remote material cooperation with evil under duress.

But Franck isn't going for it. At least he has come to understand that one group purchaser can't be held accountable for coverage used by another.

If I run Carolina Catholic College and sign a contract with Blue Cross, it may trouble me that Blue Cross is providing birth control pills to Duke employees, but in its contract with my college, it better not provide those pills to our employees. I am not culpable for the arrangement BC has with Duke. I am directing premiums to a common BC pool out of which funds pay for Duke employees birth control pills, but at least I have not created a triadic relationship in which BC, by virtue of its contract with us, provides those pills to Carolina Catholic employees.

Ah, yes, the triadic relationship -- famous in Catholic moral theological circles for being completely made up by Matthew Franck. He admits that there's nothing wrong with paying an insurer that covers abortions so long as you're not contracting for that coverage. Your money goes into the pool. The insurer then decides how to spend it. You aren't culpable because you didn't contract for such coverage. But here comes the HHS accommodation, "which preserves exactly that triadic relationship, under a deception that the link is severed between employer's actions and employees' access to contraception."

One might be forgiven for detecting in this passage just a touch of obscurantism. Is a triadic relationship one that involves inevitable outcomes by virtue of one's relationship with two other parties? What's the outcome? Franck tells us: employees of accommodated religious institutions will receive "illicit coverage." There it is again -- that fake moral category: the illicit thing. Remember, the Catholic moral tradition does not recognize things in themselves as licit or illicit. Only acts can be so. Until an employee uses that coverage for illicit purposes, there's been no violation of Catholic teaching. (That's why the issue of alleged "automatic coverage" is a red herring.)

Critics of the mandate would rather pretend that the employees' role in the moral question is incidental, or at least not as important as the employers' decision to provide coverage. In fact it is essential -- not only because the decision to behave illicitly is theirs, but also because they receive health-care coverage as compensation for their labor. In the United States, health benefits are considered part of a worker's wages. When diocesan employees buy condoms with their wages, is it their bishop's fault? When they don't, does their bishop get credit? Of course not. An employer is never responsible for his employees' consumption choices. Why should it be any different in the case of third-party-provided contraception coverage? (Note, too, that Franck doesn't have a lot to say about HHS's proposals for "self-insured" religious employers -- that's because HHS will essentially pay a third party to provide contraception coverage. There's almost no cooperation with evil to speak of.)

The mandate's critics twist Catholic moral reasoning into impossible knots: Does Franck really believe it's possible to "sever" all links between human choices and evil outcomes? I doubt it. So why suggest such a thing? Could it be that critics of the mandate contort themselves so because they're loath say what they're really thinking: that no one has a right to opt in to contraception coverage, and no employees have a moral right to use contraception -- Catholic or not? If so, they should say so. But, of course, that would be giving away the game.

I see progress. Franck has discovered the word "fungible." If he keeps at it, he will eventually arrive at what the word means. Then, when he applies "fungible" to "insurance pool," the light may dawn. Or not.

My favorite part of his analysis is this: "In addition to the moral problem of scandal, and damage to the witness of the institution, there is still real cooperation and agency in the transaction that brings about the access to contraception." What scandal? He's begging the question: only if you accept his main assertion that "there is still real cooperation and agency" that amounts to intolerably direct cooperation with evil could you consider the arrangement cause for scandal. Damage to the witness of the institution? Their employees will each receive written notification that the institution has a religious objection to providing them with coverage for birth control, and that they will therefore have to receive that coverage under a separate arrangement with the insurance company. Seems like pretty overt witness to me.I think "scandal" and "witness" really are the motivating factors here, though, in a twisted sort of way. The bishops, and those like Franck who are so dedicated to backfilling some kind of consistent logic for the bishops' shifting objections, seem to think that their obligation to uphold the faith (or their need to be its authoritative interpreters) requires them to hold firm against any attempt to accomodate their objections. They really do seem to think they can't take yes for an answer. I see the risk of scandal running pretty strong in the opposite direction, myself. They no longer even seem to be trying to get this right. But they sure are firm.

I sympathize with Franck about fungibility and agency. Both notions are metaphysically extremely hard to describe and explain, When you have a pool of money, such as a betting pool, just what do you have? What *kind* of parts make up the pool? Can you dice and slice the pool into parts like a hunk of cheese or a cake? Most important, just how can you *identify* which owner owns which parts? Or can you say that any particular owner owns a particular part? I say the answer is that each owner owns a *portion* of the pool, but the portion is not identifiable. In the case of the mandate, we don't even agree as to who owns the pool -- the insurance company or the people who put the money into it. That's the crux question in the HHS matter. I say that when the bishops put their money in the ins. co. became the owner. If the bishops still owned it, they could withdraw it at will, but they can't because it's not theirs anymore. Even if we say that the bishops' still own a part of the pool, I say that because the parts are not distinguishable, they are not identifiable. So when the ins. co. pays out money from the pool there's just no way to tell whether it's the bishops' part or somebody else's that is being used. The whole issue becomes moot, it *can't* be settled.What a sink hole of questions.

Perhaps Grant is onto something important. I wondered why the Bishops' latest communication kept putting so much stress on the evil of the new insurance arrangement's making free contraception available to minors under their parents' policies. If keeping contraception as unavailable as they can make it is a major aim of their campaign, it might explain the desperate to convince parents that having the insurance policy as written would not only be sinful, but a threat to their parental authority and their children's innocence.(Never mind the contrary implications of Catholic moral theology when they are inconvenient).

When HHS was first acted upon last year, I found out my Kaiser Heath insurance covered contraception all during my 60 years of coverage. When we worked for the Archdiocese and oped out of the diocesan Health insurance because we were already covered by my previous employers insurance, The Archdiocese loved the savings we presented. . The sin of 'fungiblity' was never on the table. Are some bishops unaware of Jesus asking 'whose image is on this coin"?

I don't think the bishops (or other Catholic stakeholders such as business owners) are out of line to wish to insulate their institutions to the extent possible from any cooperation in the distribution or use of contraception. Even remote material cooperation is not the same as no cooperation whatever. If the latter is reasonably possible, it may be worth pursuing.(To suggest an analogous situation: I am not happy that my tax dollars fund an arsenal of gratuitous weapons of mass destruction. I believe that my cooperation in their assembly and maintenance is remote. But that doesn't relieve me of my responsibility to speak out against them.)I agree wholeheartedly with Grant and others that intent is an essential factor factor in determining culpability, and people who have followed the plot closely in this controversy can't mistake the bishops' intent on behalf of their people in this matter. But a lot of folks presumably haven't followed the plot very closely. And there are people and entities with ideologies or vested interests that run counter to the church's on culture-war issues like contraception who may try to exploit even the appearance of church acquiescence, approval or cooperation to injure the church's reputation. (And the institutional church isn't noted for the nimbleness of its public-relations efforts). I don't think the possibility of scandal is all that far-fetched. The church opposes contraception. The church should speak against what it opposes. And it should appear to oppose what it opposes. That's the reality of religious witness in the 21st century.But it seems likely enough that the latest proposed accommodation is the last, best deal for the church, at least in the short run.

There is no freedom from cooperation with evil. You either get licitly far from or or you don't.And Jim, all the bishops who took point on this issue couldn't stop asserting that this is not about contraception. Seems to me that's what it's been about from the get-go.

I have been following this discussion for more than a week. It seems to me that all reasonable people who understand our moral tradition must be satisfied by the great lengths to which HHS has gone. Any objections that remain are not from principle, but partisanship. Even in the face of facts, when one cannot change one's mind and won't change the subject, we know what to call him.I think at this point we should note the schismatic implications of the proof-of-God banana video. As everyone knows, the monkeys God created open a banana differently (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inzk2fTUe1w), according to nature. Is the use of the so-called 'pop tab' in fact a signal of heretical leanings? Is it a sign that our place in the order of being has been inverted? Should not the pop tab be reserved for the use only of angels?I agree with all that Grant has written. Further explanations will be of no help to those who have not seen already. I would direct them to the schismatic banana thread as a more fit object for their obsessively picayune attentions.

Grant, I think there are two issues here that are getting confused. In your original post, among other things you were claiming that as a result of the accommodation, Catholic institutions do not face immoral cooperation with evil. This is as a result of both the distance ("remoteness") from the actual evil act (use of contraception) and because the institution is not paying for it (since through the accommodation, supposedly the insurance company pays for it itself). But by getting you to admit that even with the accommodation, the institution is still paying for the insurance coverage through pooling, Franck was successful in showing that the accommodation in fact makes no practical difference. If an accommodated Catholic institution is not "really" paying for contraception because the costs of the contraception are pooled, then the exact same thing could be said of a secular employer without an accommodation. So the accommodation is in fact a "deception," intended to assuage consciences without changing anything.There is the same problem in this most recent post. As far as I can tell, nothing you argue here concerning the accommodation would not also be true for a non-accommodated employer. Your point is about the moral distance of insurance in general. The accommodation doesn't really make a difference (which I think you already implicitly conceded). So the issue is not really the accommodation but the mandate itself. If one already believed that the mandate was an unjust violation of conscience, the accommodation changes nothing, and if you believed that the mandate was acceptable, then the accommodation is pointless. I think there are plausible arguments that the mandate itself does not involve the cooperation with evil its critics claim, but that is the real question, not the accommodation.

Matthew,It may be true that in one sense the accommodated Catholic employer is still "paying for" contraceptive services no less than the unaccommodated Catholic employer. But in this same sense the exempt Catholic employers are also "paying for" contraceptive services, since the premiums they pay to insurance providers are not segregated from the money the providers use to cover contraceptive services, as well as abortions, for some of their other policyholders. So this cannot be the kind of forced cooperation with evil the bishops object to, since they accept the exemption and wish to see it expanded (and have never told Catholic employers that it is illicit to buy group insurance plans from a provider that offers coverage for contraception or abortion to anyone).The accommodation puts one more degree of distance between the Catholic employer and the illicit act. Without it, an employer who disapproves of artificial contraception must buy a plan that includes coverage for contraceptives (or pay a penalty). With it, the employer must buy a plan that makes it possible for an insurance company to offer separate coverage for contraceptives to the women who work for the accommodated employer. Whether this one extra degree of distance is a sufficient difference is an interesting question. But, contrary to a lot of right-wing analysis of this issue, the church does teach that degrees of separation between those who unintentionally facilitate an evil act and the evil act itself can be morally significanthence the term "remote material cooperation."

"And Jim, all the bishops who took point on this issue couldnt stop asserting that this is not about contraception. Seems to me thats what its been about from the get-go."If the government simply imposed a new entitlement by which HHS would directly reimburse pharmacists for contraceptive prescriptions, do you think the bishops and others would have risen up and whipped up this brouhaha? I don't.The element that is so objectionable is the religious-liberty violation.

If an accommodated religious employer decides not to provide health coverage to its employees, whats likely to happen? Employees will go to the state exchanges and purchase health plans that include contraception coverage worse, they might even contract for a plan that covers abortion (the Affordable Care Act explicitly allows states to bar exchanges from offering plans that cover abortions).I dont find this to be a compelling moral argument at all. Its akin to the Church saying, You may as well do the wrong thing, because if you dont, someone else will, to the same effect, so whats the point?Is that what we would teach our children, well?

I think it is a mistake to talk of pooling as something that purchasers of insurance do. When I buy fire insurance for my house I am a "customer" of the insurance company in the same way that I am a customer of an auto dealer when I buy a car. The insurance company tells me that if I give it $5000, it will pay to rebuild my house if it burns down wihin the next year. Pooling of risks is the economic principle that makes insurance companies possible but it is something that happens only inside the insurance company.The company's customers are not involved in pooling. If I pay the $5,000, my house gets rebuilt at the company's expense regardless of how many other houses burn that year. I do not pay more because more houses than expected burn nor do I get money back if fewer houses than expected burn. It is their money, not mine, as soon as I pay them. It is a fixed payment for their promise to pay in the future if my house burns.Now, if you want to argue that I shouldn't buy insurance from a company.that sells policies covering contraception to other people, that is a different argument and also doesn't involve pooling risks.

The bishops have patently shifted from claiming the issue was their own freedom not to pay for other people's contraceptives to their employees' right to restrict their minor children's sexual activities. Hmph. Methinks I smell a rat. What do these do claims have in common? They're both anti-the Democratic administration. It's politics, guys, politics, or maybe the bishops can't stand Obama because they can't brow-beat him.

Ann - or is it because he tries to live and implement the gospel values; he cares for the disenfranchised, the poor, the sick, etc.That he lives and works as the US *community organizer* motivated by gospel values rather than power.Wonder, if at heart, they are just embarrassed when contemplating Barack Obama.

" ... bishops intent on behalf of their people ..."Is this the latest version of in loco parentis: Bishops are going to step in for parents so under-aged girls don't get their hands on the pill or boys on condoms? What about wives who get sterilized without their husband's knowledge? Or the husbands who get secret vasectomies? Or couples who decided on IVF? Or that old bugaboo, abortion?I think that people are perfectly capable of making medical decisions based on how they understand their lives, their faith and how both intersect.Bishops are free ... nay, obligated ... to explicate the teachings of the church as they understand them. But they are NOT free to control how their fellow Catholics choose to live out their lives, including how they choose to use the health insurance provided by their employers.

Matthew et al: If a Catholic employer provides health insurance without contraception coverage, but still pays its employees a salary or wage, then any portion of that salary or wage that is spent on contraception is effectively paying for contraception by the Catholic employer. It's not a case of the "what," but the "how." Either way the employer is making it possible for the employee to purchase or access contraception as (s)he sees fit.

Bill deH --I don't fault the bishops generally for not helping the poor. In fact, of all of us Americans they probably organize more help for the poor than any other group. I also remember when the Catholic bishops started to take Archbishop Rummell seriously and started to speak out against segregation and for civil rights when it wasn't at all popular anywhere in the country, and now they are speaking out for the immigrants.But they seem pretty much unaffected by the women's rights movement. But that movement has never been as unified as the racial civil rights movement because women have different ideas about just what our basic rights are. Still, the bishops don't seem to have the empathey with women that they had for black people and now for the Latinos. So I guess I have to conclude that there really is some misogyny in some of them anyway.As to Obama personally, unfortunately, some of them, probably many of them, can't seem to realize that a person can be an honest, virtuous person and think that contraception and abortion are often morally permissible. This, I fear, is part of the old Catholic triumphalism that has affected most of us that makes us think if someone disagrees with us then he must be sinfully rejecting the truth. It's that sort of extremely insulting attitude that will condemn the New Evangelization to failure. True, probably not all of them are like that, but the USCCB seems to elect people like that, and they then represent the group. My main complaints against the American bishops are the cover-ups and their unwillingness to assert their own proper role in the Church against the Curia. That has been devastating for the Church as a whole. No, I don't think they're intrinsically evil men. Just flawed badly in some ways, and that is at least partly due to their hierarchical culture.

The original post says "And then the following week I tried to help Franck understand how insurance works by explaining that insurers pool premium payments from all their customers and distribute the funds as they see fit. Aha!"That is literally true but "pool" lends itself to the misinterpretation that premiums paid are still the customer's money.If you were describing a gas station, you might say:"by explaining that the gas station owner deposits payments from his/her customers in the station bank account and spends it as she/he sees fit - to buy more gas, pay rent, pay attendents, etc and, hopefully, make a profit. It's not likely that many people imagine that if the gas station has a condom vending machine in the men's room that the money the customer paid for gas is still theirs and they are doing evil because condoms to stock the machine are being bought with their money.

by explaining that insurers pool premium payments from all their customers and distribute the funds as they see fit. Again, what is the relevance of this observation? Do you mean to argue that any insurance company can cover anything (euthanasia, abortion, etc.) and zero of its customers bear any moral responsibility for the coverage that they or their employees have?

Mr.Wasting Time, your're quoting Paul Gallicho, not me so i'll leave it to him to respond, if he wishes.For me, you have now switched to the "fungibilty of funds" argument rather than the "pooling of funds argument" Fungibility argues that I am doing evil if I:- have my prescriptions filled at a drugstore that also sells contraceptives- buy my individual health insurance from a company that also sells policies covering abortion.- buy my coffee at Starbucks even though they give money to support same-sex marriage legislationFor me, those are matters of prudential judgement which different people will decide differently. I do all of them

Consider an insurance policy that only covers maternity services and neo-natal care for which the insurance company charges the employer $500. The insurance company then determines that contraception coverage would only cost $100, and would eliminate the need (and cost to the insurer) for maternity services. So the insurance company says to the Church, Have I got a deal for you! Im going to throw in free contraception coverage to you and your employees, no additional charge! You can thank me later. The insurance company takes the $500, spends $100 on contraception, and pockets the remaining $400 as profit.Can we all agree that the Church is funding this free contraception coverage? Ok, now lets add a wrinkle. The insurance company says its policy with the Church wont cover the contraception. The contraception coverage is provided by some other entity, lets call it HHS/Exchange, which provides the coverage free, out of the kindness of its heart, to the Churchs employees. However, the insurance company still keeps the $500 paid by the Church and uses the money to pay for contraception for the Churchs employees (and pockets the additional profit).Can we all agree that the Church is still funding the free contraception coverage, and that the HHS/Exchange laundering is simply a lame attempt, er...accommodation...to obscure that reality?

No.In your first case the Catholic institution is agreeing to allow contraception to be provided under its insurance contract. That's not what the HHS regulations require.In your second case the Catholic institution does't agree to anything. The only way it could prevent its employees from getting free contraception from HHS/Exchange would be to not provide any employee health insurance at all. Now it is in the "fungibility of funds" argument that I discussed in my last comment. It's situation is the same as mine when I buy individual insurance from a company that sells policies to other people that include contraception. It makes a pudential judgement.

JohnI take you find the first case unacceptable. Thats good, some common ground has been established. And we didnt even use the word fungible!In your second case the Catholic institution doest agree to anything.Right, thats part of the figleaf/obfuscation. But its not relevant if the Church has formally agreed to anything. Its not relevant i f the insurance policy specifically says contraception is coveredthe reality is, as I described: The Church is funding contraception for its employees. The only way it could prevent its employees from getting free contraception from HHS/Exchange would be to not provide any employee health insurance at all.This repeats the exceedingly weak rationale Grant had given previously. See my comment of 4:22 pm. The obvious response is that if the mandate is not forced on the Church, its not backed into the corner you describe.

Mark,Your argument is crudely consequentialist; Catholic moral theology is not. You seem to think that as long as the final effect is the same, it doesn't matter who agrees to what: intentionality is irrelevant. According to the line of argument you're pursuing here, much of the church's moral theology is as much of an "obfuscation" as the accommodation you contemn.I still find it strange that you don't think it matters that most Catholic employers are already "funding" contraception and abortion by buying their health insurance from companies that cover those things for some of their policyholders. You seem totally unbothered that most Catholic employers already choose to do what they were free not to do, but you're completely horrified that they might do the same thing, or something similar, under duress.

You seem totally unbothered that most Catholic employers already choose to do what they were free not to do, but youre completely horrified that they might do the same thing, or something similar, under duress.Freedom or duress. I guess they must be the same...

Mark, I'm sorry, since you and I agree on a number of important issues, but in this instance, I agree with Matthew, Grant and (presumably) the rest of the Commonweal editorial board. Under the proposed accommodation, the subset of Catholic employers who are eligible for it will not be direct parties to the distribution and subsidization of contraceptives. Legally and, probably, morally (inasmuch as these employers have a moral obligation to provide decent health care to their employees), they have no realistic alternative in the short run except to be indirect parties, against their will, to the subsidized distribution of contraception. That they are indirect parties to an evil does not mean that they have to like it, and in fact, faithful Catholic employers will do this against their will and will work to change or eliminate the HHS mandate, while reluctantly doing the wishes of the government that is putting a gun to their heads.

"I take you find the first case unacceptable. Thats good, some common ground has been established. And we didnt even use the word fungiblePlaces like Fordham and other Catholic organizations don't find providing contraception unacceptable. Their student health insurance has included contraception coverage for years because it is required by state law. Franciscan Univerity went through a recent episode of discovering it had contraception coverage in its existing employee health insurance, announcing it would delete it ,and then announcing that it wouldn't delete it. Many Catholic organizations have been able to avoid state mandates by self-insuring, which puts them under the protection of federal ERISA. Bishop Morlino caused a stir some years ago when he announced that it would be too expensive for his diocese to self-insure - so it would include contraception in its health insurance.Permissible remote material cooperation in evil is not unacceptable.

Interesting bluster about firing employees who make use of the contraception coverage. This is from Bishop Morlino's diocese:"The diocese's commercial insurance policy now will offer birth-control coverage, but employees will be expected to employ their consciences in not using it, King said. "If someone were to misuse that freedom in this regard, it could be grounds for termination," he said.Such a step would be taken only if the employee, after being counseled, refused to get in line with Catholic teaching, King said. "It wouldn't be the first thing we do," he said.The Catholic Church teaches that contraception is immoral because it diminishes God's role as the giver of life and interferes with the full giving of each spouse to the other.All diocesan employees sign a morals clause in their job offers saying they will abide by Catholic teaching, so the diocese expects them to follow the prohibition against prescription contraception, King said. He acknowledged that the diocese has no way to police the issue - an employee would have to offer it up, he said.St. Mary's Hospital, a Catholic-based institution, became self-insured eight months ago to avoid the law. But in a July 27 memo to employees, President Frank Byrne said the switch is proving too costly. Also, many hospital employees are having problems accessing specialty medical care, he said.Beginning Jan. 1, St. Mary's will return to commercial policies provided by Dean Health Plan and Group Health Cooperative, said Steve Van Dinter, a hospital spokesman. Hospital employees do not sign moral clauses, he said.Read more: http://host.madison.com/news/local/madison-diocese-offers-birth-control-...

"Places like Fordham and other Catholic organizations dont find providing contraception unacceptable. Their student health insurance has included contraception coverage for years because it is required by state law."Not to pick on you John Hayes, but this statement is a perfect demonstration of why the Church needs to stand up to the HHS on the contraception mandate. Here Catholic organizations are assumed to be ok with providing contraception, in direct contravention of the Catechism, because its required by state law. So much for living and witnessing the faith.

"Here Catholic organizations are assumed to be ok with providing contraception, in direct contravention of the Catechism"Where does it say that in the Catechism? They do not promote or provide contraception. They provide insurance that pays for contraception. You cannot get a prescription for contraception from the on-campus health clinic. You must go off-campus and find a private doctor. They do what they do because the state requires them to do it - not because they endorse the use of contraceptives.

Matthew Boudway says: I still find it strange that you dont think it matters that most Catholic employers are already funding contraception and abortion by buying their health insurance from companies that cover those things for some of their policyholders.Why would he think it matters? No opponent of the contraceptive mandate has made any argument (not that I've seen) that would imply such a thing.

Bruce wrote, Here Catholic organizations are assumed to be ok with providing contraception, in direct contravention of the Catechism"John H replied, ""Where does it say that in the Catechism?"Does this definition comport with the facts of the situation? http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2284.htm(The ensuing three paragraphs are worth a read as well.)

Jim Pauwels, the proposed regulations provide:"Furthermore, nothing in these proposed rules would preclude employers or others from expressing their opposition, if any, to the use of contraceptives; require anyone to use contraceptives; or require health care providers to prescribe contraceptives if doing so is against their religious beliefs."They can do and publicize all the same things I mentioned about Fordham in my 6:22 post - plus they have the advantage over Fordham that their health inurance excludes contraception.It doesn't seem to me that they are doing anything to create scandal.

Mathew--First, is it your contention that just because I dont agree in writing to do something wrong, its ok if my actions bring about the same result? Is it your contention that the bad thing would happen anyway, so it is okeven advisable-- to put the Church under duress deliberately, to relieve it of moral culpability?I still find it strange that you dont think it matters that most Catholic employers are already funding contraception and abortion by buying their health insurance from companies that cover those things for some of their policyholders. You seem totally unbothered that most Catholic employers already choose to do what they were free not to do, but youre completely horrified that they might do the same thing, or something similar, under duress.Can you direct me to where I said I believe Catholic employers are already funding contraception or abortion?Can you direct to where I said I dont think that it matters?Can you direct me to where you ever even asked my opinion on these questions?I have found that people often try to put words in other peoples mouths when they are not confident in their own position, feel like they are on the losing side of an argument, or both.

JimMy guess is that anyone who could say this:...faithful Catholic employers will do this against their will and will work to change or eliminate the HHS mandate, while reluctantly doing the wishes of the government that is putting a gun to their heads.is much, much closer to agreeing with me than agreeing with the Commonweal editorial board, some of whom I understand have worked with the administration. Of course, they are free to enlighten us on that. Regardless, Im pleased that we are in agreement on other important issues.

Mark Proska,This year St. Ann's hospital provides its employees health insurance that excludes coverage for ontraceptionNext year St. Ann's hospital provides its employees health insurance that excludes coverage for ontraceptionAnd hHS

Sorry, hit the button by accidentMark Proska,This year St. Anns hospital provides its employees health insurance that excludes coverage for contraceptionNext year St. Anns hospital provides its employees health insurance that excludes coverage for contraceptionAnd, starting in that year,HHS provides free contraception to those employees without any action or involvement by the hospitalWhat has the hospital done wrong?

JohnIf you dont mind, Im going to answer the question you didnt ask, because I think its more pertinent. Your point seems to have shifted (maybe I just misinterpreted it from the start) from defending the mandate, to defending the Church, which the mandate strives to put in a no win situation.You, and the Commonweal editorial board, cant think its right for the administration to hold a gun to the Churchs head, so that, by choosing the lesser evil, the Church cant be held morally culpable, can you?

Mark,Your problem is not just with me, but with Catholic moral teaching. You seem to think that as long as "one's actions bring about the same result," nothing else matters. So intentionally running someone down with your car is morally no different from accidentally running someone over. And paying one's employees money they use to buy contraception is no different from providing it to them directlysame result! You ask, "Can you direct me to where I said I believe Catholic employers are already 'funding' contraception or abortion?"Whether you believe it or not, it is the case. According to your own rigoristic definition of what it means for someone to fund something, any Catholic employer that buys group health insurance from any of the major insurance providers is "funding" contraception and abortion, since these providers cover abortion and contraception for some of their policyholders. If I have been presumptuous in any wayif you were in fact writing to Catholic employers around the country warning them that they were endangering their immortal souls by doing business with health insurance companies long before the HHS mandate was first proposedI apologize.

"Whether you believe it or not, it is the case. According to your own rigoristic definition of what it means for someone to fund something, any Catholic employer that buys group health insurance from any of the major insurance providers is funding contraception and abortion, since these providers cover abortion and contraception for some of their policyholders."This is the "fungibility of money" argument. It was put forward by the USCCB during the debates before the adoption of the healthcare act - in connection with people buying individual policies from state exchanges. In different threads here it has often been confused with the "pooling of risks" argument as to whose money is being used to buy contraceptives.